If talking when attacked, he hesitates, stares in an absent-minded manner, and then completes his interrupted sentence, unaware that he has acted strangely. Whatever act he is engaged in is interrupted for a second or two, and then resumed.
A mild type of _petit mal_ consists of a temporary _blurring_ of consciousness, with muscular weakness. The victim drops what he is holding, and is conscious of a strange, extremely unpleasant sensation, a sensation which he is usually quite unable to describe to anyone else. The view in front is clear, he understands what it is--a house here, a tree there, and so on--yet he does not _grasp_ the vista as usual. Other victims have short spells of giddiness, while some are unable to realize "where they are" for a few moments.
Frequent _petit mal_ impairs the intellect more than _grand mal_, for convulsions calm the patient as a good cry calms hysterical people. After a number of attacks of _petit mal, grand mal_ usually supervenes, and most epileptics suffer from attacks of both types. Some precocious, perverse children are victims of unrecognized _petit mal_, and when pushed at school run grave risks of developing symptoms of true epilepsy. The "Little Evil" is a serious complaint.
If it be true that: "One half the world does not know how the other half lives", how true also is it that one half the world does not know, and does not care, what the other half suffers.
Epilepsy shows every gradation, from symptoms which cannot be described in language, to severe _grand mal_. Gowers says: "The elements of an epileptic attack may be extended, and thereby be made less intense, though not less distressing. If we conceive a minor attack that is extended, and its elements protracted, with no loss of consciousness, it would be so different that its epileptic nature would not be suspected. Swiftness is an essential element of ordinary epilepsy, but this does not prevent the possibility of deliberation."
In Serial Epilepsy, a number of attacks of _grand mal_ follow one another, with but very brief intervals between. Serial epilepsy often ends in
_Status Epilepticus_, in which a series of _grand mal_ attacks follow one another with no conscious interval. The temperature rises slowly, the pulse becomes rapid and feeble, the breathing rapid, shallow and irregular, and death usually occurs from exhaustion or heart-failure. Though not invariably fatal, the condition is so very grave that a doctor must instantly be summoned. Nearly all victims of severe, confirmed epilepsy (25 per cent of all epileptics) die in _status epilepticus_.